67819Moby-Dick — Chapter 73: Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over HimHerman Melville

It must be borne in mind that all
this time we have a Sperm Whale’s prodigious
head hanging to the Pequod’s side. But
we must let it continue hanging there a while till
we can get a chance to attend to it. For the
present other matters press, and the best we can do
now for the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may
hold.

Now, during the past night and forenoon,
the Pequod had gradually drifted into a sea, which,
by its occasional patches of yellow brit, gave unusual
tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species
of the Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this
particular time lurking anywhere near. And though
all hands commonly disdained the capture of those
inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not
commissioned to cruise for them at all, and though
she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts without
lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had been
brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of
all, the announcement was made that a Right Whale
should be captured that day, if opportunity offered.

Nor was this long wanting. Tall
spouts were seen to leeward; and two boats, Stubb’s
and Flask’s, were detached in pursuit.
Pulling further and further away, they at last became
almost invisible to the men at the masthead.
But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap
of tumultuous white water, and soon after news came
from aloft that one or both the boats must be fast.
An interval passed and the boats were in plain sight,
in the act of being dragged right towards the ship
by the towing whale. So close did the monster
come to the hull, that at first it seemed as if he
meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a maelstrom,
within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared
from view, as if diving under the keel. “Cut,
cut!” was the cry from the ship to the boats,
which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being
brought with a deadly dash against the vessel’s
side. But having plenty of line yet in the tubs,
and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they paid
out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled
with all their might so as to get ahead of the ship.
For a few minutes the struggle was intensely critical;
for while they still slacked out the tightened line
in one direction, and still plied their oars in another,
the contending strain threatened to take them under.
But it was only a few feet advance they sought to
gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain
it; when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running
like lightning along the keel, as the strained line,
scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose to view under
her bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging
off its drippings, that the drops fell like bits of
broken glass on the water, while the whale beyond
also rose to sight, and once more the boats were free
to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed,
and blindly altering his course, went round the stern
of the ship towing the two boats after him, so that
they performed a complete circuit.

Meantime, they hauled more and more
upon their lines, till close flanking him on both
sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance;
and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went,
while the multitudes of sharks that had before swum
round the Sperm Whale’s body, rushed to the
fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at
every new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the
new bursting fountains that poured from the smitten
rock.

At last his spout grew thick, and
with a frightful roll and vomit, he turned upon his
back a corpse.

While the two headsmen were engaged
in making fast cords to his flukes, and in other ways
getting the mass in readiness for towing, some conversation
ensued between them.

“I wonder what the old man wants
with this lump of foul lard,” said Stubb, not
without some disgust at the thought of having to do
with so ignoble a leviathan.

“Wants with it?” said
Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat’s
bow, “did you never hear that the ship which
but once has a Sperm Whale’s head hoisted on
her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale’s
on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that
ship can never afterwards capsize?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, but I heard
that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so, and he
seems to know all about ships’ charms.
But I sometimes think he’ll charm the ship to
no good at last. I don’t half like that
chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk
of his is a sort of carved into a snake’s head,
Stubb?”

“Sink him! I never look
at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a dark
night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no
one by; look down there, Flask”—pointing
into the sea with a peculiar motion of both hands—“Aye,
will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the
devil in disguise. Do you believe that cock and
bull story about his having been stowed away on board
ship? He’s the devil, I say. The
reason why you don’t see his tail, is because
he tucks it up out of sight; he carries it coiled
away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that
I think of it, he’s always wanting oakum to stuff
into the toes of his boots.”

“He sleeps in his boots, don’t
he? He hasn’t got any hammock; but I’ve
seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging.”

“No doubt, and it’s because
of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye see, in
the eye of the rigging.”

“What’s the old man have so much to do
with him for?”

“Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose.”

“Bargain?—about what?”

“Why, do ye see, the old man
is hard bent after that White Whale, and the devil
there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap
away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of
that sort, and then he’ll surrender Moby Dick.”

“Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how
can Fedallah do that?”

“I don’t know, Flask,
but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked one,
I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering
into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about
devilish easy and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if
the old governor was at home. Well, he was at
home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The
devil, switching his hoofs, up and says, ‘I want
John.’ ‘What for?’ says the
old governor. ‘What business is that of
yours,’ says the devil, getting mad,—‘I
want to use him.’ ‘Take him,’
says the governor— and by the Lord, Flask,
if the devil didn’t give John the Asiatic cholera
before he got through with him, I’ll eat this
whale in one mouthful. But look sharp—ain’t
you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead,
and let’s get the whale alongside.”

“I think I remember some such
story as you were telling,” said Flask, when
at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their
burden towards the ship, “but I can’t
remember where.”

“Three Spaniards? Adventures
of those three bloody-minded soldadoes? Did ye
read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?”

“No: never saw such a
book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me,
Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking
of just now, was the same you say is now on board the
Pequod?”

“Am I the same man that helped
kill this whale? Doesn’t the devil live
for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead?
Did you ever see any parson a wearing mourning for
the devil? And if the devil has a latch-key to
get into the admiral’s cabin, don’t you
suppose he can crawl into a porthole? Tell me
that, Mr. Flask?”

“How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?”

“Do you see that mainmast there?”
pointing to the ship; “well, that’s the
figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod’s
hold, and string ’em along in a row with that
mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that wouldn’t
begin to be Fedallah’s age. Nor all the
coopers in creation couldn’t show hoops enough
to make oughts enough.”

“But see here, Stubb, I thought
you a little boasted just now, that you meant to give
Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance.
Now, if he’s so old as all those hoops of yours
come to, and if he is going to live for ever, what
good will it do to pitch him overboard—
tell me that?

“Give him a good ducking, anyhow.”

“But he’d crawl back.”

“Duck him again; and keep ducking him.”

“Suppose he should take it into
his head to duck you, though— yes, and
drown you—what then?”

“I should like to see him try
it; I’d give him such a pair of black eyes that
he wouldn’t dare to show his face in the admiral’s
cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the
orlop there, where he lives, and hereabouts on the
upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the
devil, Flask; do you suppose I’m afraid of the
devil? Who’s afraid of him, except the
old governor who daresn’t catch him and put
him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him
go about kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond
with him, that all the people the devil kidnapped,
he’d roast for him? There’s a governor!”

“Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain
Ahab?”

“Do I suppose it? You’ll
know it before long, Flask. But I am going now
to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything
very suspicious going on, I’ll just take him
by the nape of his neck, and say—Look here,
Beelzebub, you don’t do it; and if he makes
any fuss, by the Lord I’ll make a grab into his
pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, and give
him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will
come short off at the stump—do you see;
and then, I rather guess when he finds himself docked
in that queer fashion, he’ll sneak off without
the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between
his legs.”

“And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?”

“Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when
we get home;—what else?”

“Now, do you mean what you say, and have been
saying all along, Stubb?”

“Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship.”

The boats were here hailed, to tow
the whale on the larboard side, where fluke chains
and other necessaries were already prepared for securing
him.

“Didn’t I tell you so?”
said Flask; “yes, you’ll soon see this
right whale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacety’s.”

In good time, Flask’s saying
proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply leaned
over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by
the counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even
keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe.
So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head,
you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist
in Kant’s and you come back again; but in very
poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep
trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these
thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light
and right.

In disposing of the body of a right
whale, when brought alongside the ship, the same preliminary
proceedings commonly take place as in the case of
a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head
is cut off whole, but in the former the lips and tongue
are separately removed and hoisted on deck, with all
the well known black bone attached to what is called
the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the
present case, had been done. The carcases of
both whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden
ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair
of overburdening panniers.

Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing
the right whale’s head, and ever and anon glancing
from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own
hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the
Parsee occupied his shadow; while, if the Parsee’s
shadow was there at all it seemed only to blend with,
and lengthen Ahab’s. As the crew toiled
on, Laplandish speculations were bandied among them,
concerning all these passing things.